We are not able to make an estimate of how Antonio was able to put aside during his stay in the U.S. but his children report that, with that nest egg, he could buy an entire farm. Yet to pull out a figure quite close to reality we just need to know only two numbers: the salary received by the Pen and rent (meals and lodging) paid to Muriello. The latter figure could be found in census records, but unfortunately, unlike the census of 1930 in which data are collected on the house, in 1920 this figure was not collected. However, it can be helped by the fact that during the period were built 14,000 homes in Baltimore's economic calls "rowhouse" (row houses). In 1914 a two-story rowhouse cost $ 1,200. The low cost of these houses was due to the fact that the land on which they were built not bought, but for the use of these building assault you pay a rent that ranged from 42 to 60 dollars a year. The rowhouse allowed people to become owner without incurring excessive costs, and many were to accede to the proposal because in 1929 63% of the occupants of these houses it was also the owner.
(Baltimore rowhouses 1914 photo taken from the site www.kilduffs.com)
a rowhouse in 1914 valued at $ 1,200 could be purchased at a cost of 5 / 7 dollars a week (20 to $ 30 per month), expenses that included the installment for the purchase of the house, the rent of land, taxes, fees for water and insurance. After 8 or 10 years if the payments were made on time you became owners. These prices certainly had to affect the rental market so it is reasonable to think that Antonio and Umberto do not spend more than $ 30 per month for accommodation. With regard to the salary they received, we have no indication of the task being performed, but because the work required to emigrants, then as now, work is "not qualified", it is likely they were to "track", ie the railroad tracks, for 'just as trackmen. At the beginning of the century and before the war took a Trackman about a dollar a day, value remained almost unchanged since 1870. Before the war the rate of dollar / lira was equal about 5 or 6 pounds per dollar. An Italian worker at that time received an average salary of 2.5 pounds per day, then the United States to track earned more than double, but wages rose during the war. In 1921 the U.S. Railroad Labor Board reduced to 30 cents an hour the pay of trackmen reabsorbing the increase of 8 cents and a half that there was in May 1920. So from this we can deduce that the higher pay earned in that period was of 38 cents an hour and a half, totaling $ 3.08 per day, which converted into lire in 1920 (average 21.11 years lire to the dollar) is equivalent to 65 pounds per day against an average of 18 pounds Italian perceived by the worker in that same period, so the distances wage increased. Studies on the wages of the railway sector published in 1922 during the great strike of railway employees, summer, complaining about an increase in average sector wage higher than inflation over the period 1914 to 1921. In fact, over the period, consumer prices in the United States doubled, while in Italy because of the war were more than quadrupled that wages would suffer without increases in line with inflation itself.
In summary we can say that in his time spent Antonio receive a salary equal to twice in the beginning and then more than three times what they could earn in Italy. Wage increases exceeding the inflation rate, thanks the fact that the railway industry was paying more than others, allowed the time to increase capacity to save. In addition, his salary being paid in a currency stronger than the dollar note which was not even pulverized Italian inflation when the lira was converted into a nest egg saved.
(Chart taken from the website of the Italian Foreign Exchange) 
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